Glamorama
by Flagg1991
Summary: Now the oldest sibling at home, Lincoln Loud embarks on a journey of self-discovery that leads him to unexpected feelings. Meanwhile, honor roll student Lucy is unjustly blamed for vandalizing the high school and sets out to clear her name. Collaboration with Lentex. Cover by Lentex.
1. Chapter 1

The more things change, the more they stay the same. That maxim had never been clearer to Lincoln Loud than it was on the morning his life changed forever. It started as any other, the shrill _beep-beep-beep _of the alarm clock startling him from the warm bosom of sleep like a brisk and sudden slap. He jerked, looked bewilderedly around, then relaxed as the mist rapidly dissipated from his brain. Golden late winter sunshine spilled through the window pane and lay in puddles on the carpet, and a cold breeze blew against the closed window, rattling the screen.

He slapped the off button and laid back against the pillow, blinking the sleep from his eyes. Maybe, if he stayed really still, the world would forget he existed and he could take the day off. Surely life wouldn't miss him _that _badly.

Right?

Heh. Wrong. At seventeen, Lincoln, the perennial middle child born smack dab between two sets of five sisters, one group older and the other younger, was the Oldest Sibling, a prestigious position that entailed endless managerial work. The Loud house was, he reckoned, like a ship at sea. You don't just step away from the wheel and let it sail itself. That's how shipwrecks so epic people still talk about them 200 years later happen. _Remember the SS Loud House? The Captain ducked out to read a comic, and it hit an iceberg so hard everyone instantly died. _His little sisters, Lucy, Lana, Lola, Lisa, and Lily, were responsible enough and able to govern themselves to an extent, but there were still times they needed him...whether they knew it or not.

When Lynn left for college last year, leaving him to assume the mantle of Oldest, he did not relish the prospect of shouldering the burden as each of his elder sisters had. He loved his family and would do anything for them, but he was a sixteen year old kid with his own life. Friends. A part time job washing dishes and Jean Juan's. The occasional party. And an on again off again girlfriend in Stella Dinh, a girl he enjoyed being around but could never fully connect with.

Then, after a few months of dragging himself half-heartedly through his duties, Lori called home from Boston, and when he mentioned not really wanting to do "this crap," she told him something that gave him pause.

_I was a shitty big sister, _she said, a note of guilt in her voice. _I could have been more involved...I _should _have been more involved...but I wasn't. I was too focused on myself and when I left home and didn't have you guys anymore, you know what? I really regretted it. And I still do. _

Family, she said, is a sacred thing, but fleeting too. Things even out down the road, but before that, they're constantly in flux, the ground shaky beneath your feet, never quite still. Before you know it, your childhood is over and you're left to reflect on it for the next forty years. Lori had begun to look back, and she didn't like what she saw.

He didn't want that for himself, and resolved to be the best big brother he possibly could.

He rose and stepped down from his bed, careful not to get up too fast and bump his head. The closet-room ceiling above him was much closer than it had been when he was younger. For the past half decade, his older sisters had moved out one by one each year, departing like bullets from a revolver firing off a steady pace, and for the first time ever, each Loud child had their own room. Lincoln's parents had offered to make two of his sisters pair up again, but he shook his head and refused their offer. He of all people knew what it was like to want freedom and privacy—growing up, it was often difficult to come by—and to have your own room was to have freedom. He didn't want to strip that freedom away from any of his sisters by forcing two of them to once again share a room. He could manage just fine in the linen closet, and he would be gone in a year and a half anyway, too.

In the hallway, he pondered what he would do if he grew any more. He was tall, but not extremely much so. Lincoln had just turned six feet a couple of months ago, and when he measured the height of his closet-bedroom, it was six feet and two inches at the lowest point. He didn't think it would become a problem before he moved out, but if it did, he could always ask around and see if any of his little sisters were willing to trade with him. If he told them his problem, he was sure they would. Though the way they most often showed it was through ducking, dodging, pushing and shoving, the Loud siblings all loved one another.

As he reached the end of the hallway, like clockwork, Lincoln watched as Lucy left the bathroom just as Lana opened the door of her room.

"Did you two time that out?" Lincoln asked, joking.

Lucy shook her head. "I guess we just have this down to a science by now."

She was right. While ten siblings getting ready in the morning paved the way to chaos and disorder, five siblings getting ready, while not as free-flowing as just two or three, was a lot easier for everyone to manage. Since Lynn's departure last year, a new routine had took hold of the morning before school like an unwritten regime. Always first to wake up and get to the bathroom was Lola, due to the fact that she took a bath for at least twenty-five minutes before the start every day. Next came Lisa, who was particularly concerned with her dental hygiene (Lisa was the only person Lincoln knew who actually flossed twice every day) and made a point to take care of it first thing every morning. While Lisa took care of her teeth, Lily showered, and when Lisa and then Lily left the bathroom, Lucy had her turn. Lana was always the last to wake up and the last to use the bathroom. It wasn't uncommon for her to sleep in and skip her shower entirely in the morning.

Lincoln was the only one to take his shower during the nighttime. His sisters were in no way good at functioning in the morning and all preferring showering after waking up in an attempt to help them gain some sort of consciousness before the day started. It wasn't easy for him, either, but he still preferred taking his showers before going to sleep because it was a good thing to look forward to before he went to bed. A warm shower always relaxed him before bed and gave him a chance to collect his thoughts at the end of the day. Especially useful were these thought-collecting moments because he'd found himself with more and more to think about as the Oldest.

Lucy began to head downstairs and Lana began to make her way into the bathroom, but Lincoln grabbed her shoulders and gently moved her out of the way.

"What are you doing?" she asked sleepily. "It's my turn, Lincoln."

"I need to grab the trash," he said, walking in. "It'll take two seconds."

Lana stuck out her tongue as Lincoln opened the bathroom and approached the small trash bin next to the sink. He opened the cabinet under the sink, grabbed a fresh trash bag, and reached into the trash bin to swap it out with the old one.

"It's all yours," he said as he took the full trash bag out of the bathroom.

As he made his way downstairs, the smell of bacon hit Lincoln's nose and he heard the sound of the coffee machine brewing. He went into the kitchen. Lola was sitting at the table fiddling with her phone, Lily and Lisa were having a soft conversation, Lucy was fixing a plate, and Mom was washing her hands.

"I thought doing the trash was Lily's job?" Mom asked when Lincoln grabbed the kitchen trash bag.

"Yeah," he said, "but she's been studying hard for a test the past few days and I wanted to give her a little break." Since becoming the oldest, Lincoln made a conscious effort to more often pitch in where he could to help out his sisters. Even small things didn't go unnoticed, and he had to lead by example.

"That's very sweet of you, Lincoln."

Outside, a cold wind hit Lincoln like a slap in the face. It was nearing the end of February now, but Lincoln suspected that there were still at least a couple of snow days left down the road. The sunrise in the distant Michigan landscape was bright and orange and beautiful, so much so that to Lincoln it almost even was suggestive of a higher being. Such a wonderful scene demands an intelligent creator, right? Lincoln didn't actually know, but he didn't entirely rule out either possibility. His family was sort of religious but never really went to church, and Lori, Lucy and Lisa all thought for certain there was no God. Personally, Lincoln was entirely unsure.

"How do you think the Earth started?" Lincoln asked Lucy over breakfast once he went inside and got himself a plate.

"I don't know," she said simply.

"Really? I thought you of all people would have at least an idea of something like that."

"People don't need to know everything, Lincoln," she said without looking up. "It doesn't really affect me, so I don't put much thought into it. It's pointless."

He shrugged. Lucy was fourteen, and would be fifteen in less than a month. Lincoln thought her to be much more smarter and deep than he was around that age. When he was a freshman in high school himself, his peers were concerned with simple kid things like first girlfriends or passing tryouts to get on a sports team. From what Lincoln saw, Lucy wasn't very much concerned with things like that. He walked in her room the other day and saw her reading a giant book titled _War and Peace_. He asked her what it was about, and she said something about post-reform Russia and aristocracy.

"I guess so," he responded. He brought a piece of cooked potato to his mouth. Chewing, he pointed his fork at her. "But isn't it weird going through every day not knowing why or how you're here?"

"No, not really. Not for me at least. It doesn't concern me in the slightest."

Lincoln nodded.

It did him, but only in a vague, roundabout way. Maybe it was getting older, but he often found himself wondering after the point and meaning of life. Surely there must be a reason. The science teacher said that earth, and indeed the very universe itself, was created by an accidental chain reaction of events, and that human beings formed from parasites in the sea. Perhaps they did, but man possesses a spark of _something _that no other animal does, a certain self and moral awareness that sets him distinctly apart from the lower beasts. Did that, too, come from nothing?

He took a drink of orange juice and sighed. In the grand scheme of things he supposed it _didn't _really matter, but he thought about it anyway. "That test is today, right?" he asked and forked a piece of egg to his mouth.

Across the table, Lily nodded. "Yeah. I'm kind of nervous."

Seven, almost eight, and small for her age, Lily wore her blonde hair in a ponytail that stuck up from behind her head like a feather duster (Lola and Lana were both fond of flicking it when they passed). Like each one of her sisters, she was intelligent, but her ADHD ensured that her time in school was anything but easy. Even on medication, she could barely sit still, and even now, she twitched and figited restively in her seat. She stared down her plate with something approaching shame and prodded a piece of underdone potato with her fork. Lincoln had the utmost faith in her ability to do the work, but the jury was still out on whether or not she would be able to _concentrate_.

"You'll do fine," he said and took a bite of bacon. "Just close out the world and -"

"Pretend nothing else exists," she finished.

Lincoln grinned. He worked with her as best he could, and always told her to block everything else from her mind but the task or assignment she was working on. Sometimes it worked, other times it didn't.

Turning his attention to Lana, who sat hunched protectively over her food like a starved dog, he asked, "Anything interesting going on?"

She nodded. "Yeah," she said around a mouthful of eggs, "shop."

Ah. Lana was a long time member of the Future Engineers of America, an after school club that, despite its lofty monicker, was little more than a glorified shop class. There, she excelled in welding, metal fabricating, auto mechanics, and electrical work. She routinely brought projects home and set up in the garage, which even now was strewn with parts and pieces that Lincoln could name only tentatively. He provided as much help as he could, but his mind, unfortunately, was not geared in that direction, and he wound up doing little more than handing her tools and nursing her cuts, burns, and scrapes.

"Is your project due today?"

"Tomorrow."

"Lola?" Lincoln asked. "Anything exciting in the cards?"

Lola, once a beauty queen and now the captain of the cheer squad at Royal Woods Middle, sat next to her twin, clad in a sleeveless pink dress with a white belt featuring a large oval-shaped buckle. Her hair, like summer wheat, spilled over her shoulders in wavy tresses. Her features were identical to Lana's, but somehow they seemed more delicate on her; with her high cheekbones, pert nose, faint constellation of freckles, and clear eyes, she was beautiful, and Lincoln was strangely proud of her for it, even though aesthetic beauty is largely beyond one's control and not really an accomplishment.

"Not really," she said, "I think I have a math test. Not sure, though."

In addition to her looks, Lola was blessed with a mechanical inclination similar to Lana's. If she were to cultivate it, she could match or even exceed her twin's technical prowess. She was not interested in doing so, however, and used her smarts to pass (with flying colors, of course) but nothing more.

Lincoln glanced at his watch, saw that it was time to leave, and sighed. "Alright, well, you guys have a good day. Lola, pass that test. Lily, you too. Lana...if you use the blowtorch today, do me a favor and wear your mask."

"Yes, mother," Lana said, spraying food. She nodded to his plate. "You gonna finish that?"

He pushed the plate across the table, and she took it.

Before leaving, he went over to the sink, where his mother was elbows deep in soapy water, and kissed her cheek. "Love you," he said.

"I love you too, honey, have a good day."

"I will," he promised.

At the front door, he slipped into his jacket, grabbed his backpack, and slung it over his shoulder. He went outside and drew a lungful of bitterly cold air. The trees up and down Franklin Avenue stood stark and bare against the facades of the houses fronting the sidewalk. A yellow school bus, its flanks coated in mud and salt, ambled past in the street, a plume of exhaust trailing behind it like a phantom chasing after the living _(wait, I want to be like yooooou). _Lincoln pulled his coat closed at the throat and went down the stairs, pausing at the end of the walkway to let a Chevy pass. He crossed the street and started toward school, hands in his pockets. _Have a good day, _his mother said.

And he intended to do just that.

* * *

Lucy Loud grabbed her books from the kitchen table, tucked them under her arm, and went into the living room. Lola and Lana sat side-by-side on the couch in front of _Good Morning, America. _Neither paid attention, they were just killing time until they had to leave. Lucy glanced at the ornamental clock on the mantle; she had fifteen minutes.

Instead of whiling it away like her sisters, she sat her books on the end table, shrugged into a black, knee length pea coat, then picked them back up again and left. A raw blast of February wind lashed her pallid face and a slight shiver went through her thin frame. Fourteen with long black hair pulled into a ponytail and bangs obscuring her crystalline eyes, Lucy was, per Pop-Pop, a "string bean." Tall, thin, and lanky. She started puberty at twelve, yet her body was still as flat and shapeless as it was when she was eight. Most girls her age would worry incessantly over their lack of hips and breasts, but Lucy, frankly, didn't care. The body, she had come to realize, is but a superficial vessel with one purpose and one purpose alone: To house and facilitate the mind. Modern society places great emphasis on appearance and fashion, but one's looks do not define them. Their face, their chest, even their genitals, are not _them_: Everything that makes a person who they are is centered in the brain. Their thoughts, worldview, life experience, likes, dislikes, interests, hobbies. The body was, in essence, an overcoat to the mind's being.

That may have sounded nhillistic if she spoke it aloud, but she did not mean it to. She was fundamentally happy (though she did not wear it on her sleeve) and, she thought, well-adjusted. She had friends and had been asked on dates by both boys _and _girls. She did well in her classes and never suffered from existential dread; she was not sad, depressed, or awkward.

Though she was _different_.

Royal Woods High was about a twenty minute walk from her house, and she usually made the trip with Lincoln. Her being a freshman and him being a junior, she often didn't see him at school, and she liked engaging in conversation with him when the opportunity arose since they didn't really go out of their way to talk at home. It was always good, though, to walk alone, as it gave her an opportunity to collect and organize her thoughts before the day got underway.

Lucy heard the hum of a car behind her, and thought not much of it until she noticed it start to slow behind her. She paused and looked over her shoulder, and the vehicle, a red Sudan, came up next to her and stopped. The front passenger side window lowered and Lucy saw the face of her friend, Caroline, looking back at her.

"Lucy!" she said. "My sister's giving me a ride to school today. Want to hop in?"

Caroline, a timid and quiet girl with glasses but very personable once you got to know her, was one of Lucy's best friends, and one of the few girls at her school that she didn't consider vapid. Her favorite conversations with the girl were about literature. When she saw Caroline reading a Bret Easton Ellis novel near the start of the school year, Lucy gave herself a one time exception to her personal rule never to interrupt someone while reading and struck up a conversation about it.

Lucy nodded. "That'd be lovely. Thank you."

"Are you excited for the meeting today?" Caroline asked as Lucy got into the backseat of the car.

"For sure. You finished the book, right?" She fastened her seatbelt and the car lurched forward.

"Of course I did! You?"

"I saved the last chapter for my study hall today, since it's in the morning and I have nothing else to do."

Caroline nodded. "I think you'll like the ending."

When Lucy found out that Royal Woods High had no literature club, she took it upon herself to start one. Once a week, she and four other students met after school in the library for an hour to discuss the agreed upon reading they had done since the last get together. Then, they ate snacks and chattered quietly as they used the rest of their time together to begin reading the next selection for the week. Because the literature club allowed Lucy to discuss books with other like-minded people, it gave her the opportunity to read even more difficult literature than she would have alone because she could bounce any questions that she had around the group, but more importantly, she had started the club because she thought it would be a fun thing to do. And she thought right; attending the meetings were the highlight of her week, and she looked forward to them almost in the same way a child looked forward to an amusement park ride whilst waiting in line.

This week's book was _Finnegans Wake_ by James Joyce, often cited as one of the most difficult books in the English language for its stream-of-consciousness writing style, idiosyncratic use of language, and free dream associations. It was an avant-garde masterpiece and loomed large in the landscape of Lucy's mind, a mysterious, mist-shrouded mountain begging to be climbed, a challenge to her intelligence that promised to either make her sense of self...or break it. She was not conceited, but she prided herself on her profound intellect, and the worst indignity she could ever suffer was to feel or look stupid. _Finnegans Wake _was as intimidating as it was inaccessible, and when it was first suggested to the club by an overweight tenth grader/dungeon master named Winston, her initial reaction was mortification. A part of her wanted to remonstrate, but another part realized, on a fundamental level, that if she backed down from this, she would never be able to look herself in the mirror again, for in the looking glass, she would see a cerebral coward.

She grudgingly accepted the selection and began an arduous climb to the summit that, to her surprise, became easier as she made her way higher. At first, the literary iconoclasm was jarring, like the sudden touch of icy water to sensitive places, but the more she read, the more accustomed to it she became. By the end of the week, she was even enjoying it.

"Because that means the book's over?" Lucy asked archly and lifted a questioning brow,

Caroline opened her mouth to reply, then closed it again. "I don't want to spoil anything," she said and faced forward, "just read it for yourself."

A short girl with shoulder length auburn hair, too close eyes, bland cheekbones, and a flat nose, Caroline, perhaps inexplicably, reminded Lucy of the fish-human hybrids from Lovecraft's _The Shadow Over Innsmouth. _She was not attractive, though she wasn't exactly ugly either. Of course. her physical appearance was neither here nor there - Lucy was drawn not to her face but to her mind. She and Caroline were similar in matters of taste and pursuits, both seekers after knowledge who enjoyed the occasional delve into the macabre and the trivial. Before Caroline moved to Royal Woods three years ago, Lucy was alone in her love of esoteric subjects, obscure history, aberrant psychology, and the supernatural. In Caroline, she found a kindred spirit and for the first time in her life, she felt understood. Her brother and sisters were deep and thoughtful people, but their interests rarely aligned with her own.

"Alright," Lucy said, "I will. Speaking of endings, did you hear who died?"

Caroline furrowed her brow. "No, who?"

The car turned left onto Schoolhouse Road. The grimy brick facade of Royal Woods High, built so long ago that George Washington might have once been a student, peeked out from behind a rush of barren trees. In the driver seat, Caroline's sister Rachel drummed the wheel with her fingers and bunched her lips from one side to the other, her vacant face the dictionary definition of indecision.

"Mrs. Atkins," Lucy said.

"Really?" Caroline asked with subdued interest. Mrs. Atkins, a tall black woman with glasses so big they had their own Congressman, was the principal of Royal Woods Middle. She retired the year Caroline transferred from Ann Arbor, and Lucy often crossed paths with her in town, the most recent time being three months before when she literally bumped into her at the grocery store. At fifty-eight, she was healthy and fit, and Lucy was surprised to see her staring back from the newspaper obituaries.

Lucy nodded. "Yeah. She went home to be with Jesus." She spoke with a sardonic twist. Obituaries seldom give the cause of death, it's always _died after a long illness _or _went home to glory. _

"What do you think it was?" Caroline asked, her voice lowering conspiratorially. Rachel pulled into the driveway fronting the school. A line of buses sat at the curb and spilled their contents onto the breezeway running the length of the building. Principal Rader, a tall man with a bald pate, glasses, and a walrus mustache stood next to the main doors with Vice Principal Wuornos, a blonde woman who looked like a man. They both glared at the flood of students streaming past them like a couple of serial killers.

"Heart attack," Lucy said instantly.

Rachel pulled into a slot in the student parking facing the school's western wall, then whipped out her phone and texted someone. "What makes you so sure?" Caroline asked as they got out.

"Whatever happened, it was probably sudden," Lucy replied, "and heart disease _is_ the leading cause of death for women over fifty in the US."

Caroline tilted her head concedingly. "True."

Side-by-side, they joined the crush of humanity shuffling into RCHS like absent eyed sheep to a slaughterhouse. Lucy's eyes darted left at right, taking in the dull, apathetic faces around her. She tried hard not to look down on other people, and constantly reminded herself that intelligence combined with ego leads only to stuffy insufferability, but there were times she looked at her fellow students and honestly disdained them. They were all alike - they dressed the same, spoke the same, listened to the same music, played the same video games, and chased superficial and material _things_. New cars. Nice clothes. 80 dollar tennis shoes that absolutely had to be kept in pristine condition. Chains, watches, status symbols that ultimately meant nothing. Looking at them, she found herself wondering what they did when they went home at night, what sort of shallow, unfulfilled, cast-adrift lives they lead.

Analyzing herself, she honestly did not think she was better, at least she didn't believe she did, she just valued different things. Seeing someone (or a whole lot of someones) who valued things that were antithetical to what she did was strange and disconcerting.

Maybe the problem rested not with them, but with her.

Eh. If there was a problem, it was probably too late to fix it now.

At her locker, she grabbed her history book. Caroline opened the one next to her and withdrew her science text. "See you at lunch."

"I'll be there," Lucy said, "barring unforeseen circumstances."

Caroline disappeared into the crowd, and Lucy made her way to class, ducking between roughhousing boys, insipid chatting girls, and harried teachers who looked like they wanted to be somewhere far away.

* * *

The morning bell rang in Lincoln Loud's ear only a few moments after he walked in the door of the school. He shoved his hands in the pocket of his hoodie and thought briefly about his schedule. It was Tuesday, so his first class would be media production.

Media production was the elective class Lincoln had picked for the current school year, and was probably his favorite course. The teacher, Mr. Berk, was very lenient with the curriculum and students loved him for it. If you were making an effort to to at least a little work during class, and you had something to show by the end of each school quarter, you got an easy 100 for a grade. All kinds of cool things came from the class—poorly edited but charming videos filmed in the school, 3D printed objects, posters digitally made by students, sub-par electronic music made in a digital program—and what you worked on was entirely up to you.

He smiled as he realized that his morning would not be spent with math equations being drilled in his head or by a teacher droning on to him about grammar or history, but by spending time in a class that he genuinely enjoyed. He merged into the crush of students walking down the hall and eventually hooked a left at a t-shaped junction.

Lincoln felt a tap on his shoulder and looked to his left. Clyde walked up from behind and joined Lincoln at his right side.

"Hey, man," he greeted.

"Hi," said Lincoln. "Ready for Mr. Berk?"

"Always. What are you going to work on this class?"

Lincoln thought. The last time he had media production, he and Clyde had sort of just goofed around in photoshop, playing around by editing pictures of one another. Mr. Berk saw and told them that they were doing good, that they were learning the program, but Lincoln didn't feel productive. He wanted to _make_ something today, he wanted to put something together.

"Why don't we film a video?" he suggested.

Clyde nodded. "Like a movie?"

"I had something shorter in mind… but, hell, sure, why not? Let's spend a few classes making a short movie."

"Sounds good."

By now they were at the door to their class and they went in. The media production room was large but effectively split into two different sections by a thin wall with a wide opening on both the left and the right sides to provide walkways into each section. There was no real order in here; tables lined most of the walls, and various computers, cameras, and other equipment stood atop them. Lincoln had once heard a freshman girl say that this class had the largest quantity of "random shit" she'd ever seen, and he couldn't help but to agree. There were all kinds of weird apparatus lying over the entire room.

"What's this video even going to be about?" asked Clyde.

"Not sure yet. Any ideas?" asked Lincoln, already walking over to grab Mr. Berk's studio quality camera from off of a table. "I'm going to grab this for now, lest a little sophomore get their little hands on it."

Clyde chuckled. Media production was one of the few courses that Lincoln took that he went to class with students outside of his grade. Both Juniors like him as well as Sophomores took media production, and it had allowed him to branch out socially. He didn't consider himself terribly popular around the school, but he wasn't a total outcast, either. He had friends in many various social circles and was comfortable talking to almost anyone, both teachers and students, both friends and strangers.

He didn't hate all underclassmen did like some of his peers did. In fact, he found many of them to be much more personable than the Juniors and Seniors. Of course, though, that didn't stop him from making the occasional joke at their expense. It was all in good fun, though.

"And that's the _last_ thing we want," continued Lincoln, chuckling. "I bet they'd spend half an hour just trying to figure out how to get the camera to record! We'd never get our chance."

Clyde smiled and walked over to a computer to load up a document to get started on writing a script. Other students began to fill into the room and get to work as the late bell rang and class officially got underway.

Lincoln was about to follow Clyde when he heard a yell. "_Hey!_" a male voice cried, and Lincoln turned around. A sophomore boy stormed up to him and pointed an accusatory finger at his chest. "The sophomores are _not_ that stupid!"

From his tone, Lincoln knew he was joking, and he smiled. "Are you sure?" Lincoln countered. "I could have sworn I saw one the other day trying to film something on a home toaster."

"No way!" the boy cried. "At least we don't hog the camera all day."

"Oh, really? That doesn't sound nearly as bad as mistaking a home appliance for a camera."

"That never happened!" He laughed, and his laugh to Lincoln sounded natural. Something that couldn't be counterfeited, something genuine.

And his genuinity continued throughout the rest of the conversation. They spoke more, about the class, about the school, about various things that Lincoln didn't fully remember after their talk came to an end. What you saw with this sophomore boy was what you got: he had introduced himself running at Lincoln and screaming, his high energy and unique sense of humor the leading and defining features of his character on full display right from the get-go.

"Lincoln?" called Clyde eventually from the other side of the room. "Ready to start, or what?"

Lincoln nodded. "I'm going to make a video with my friend," he said. "I bet it'll be a masterpiece compared to anything the sophomores could piece together."

The boy before him smiled and shook his head. "Yeah. Sure." He turned fleet on his feet and away. "I really doubt that," he joked.

As he walked away, Lincoln found himself watching him go. He was pretty short, around 5'5" if Lincoln had to guess. His hair was dirty blonde and his eyes were the deepest shade of blue that Linc had seen in recent memory. His face was soft, which made it all the more whimsical to see him scream, even if it was in simple jest.

"Who was that kid?" asked Clyde.

Lincoln shrugged.

"Don't even know his name?"

"No, I guess not."

"Huh. Okay."

And the two started their project. Lincoln's mind, however, kept going back to the boy, and when it did, he felt something faint but getting larger inside of his chest.

* * *

When Lucy made it to the office on the first floor, the secretary, who was speaking on the phone, motioned for to have a seat, and Lucy did. She tapped her foot not out of impatience but because it helped her focus on her thoughts over the droning of the phone conversation happening six feet away from her.

Lucy was a bit annoyed when she got called down to the office at the start of her study hall because she had just begun to read her book, but at the same time curious about why she was summoned. Had she done something wrong? She thought about it and thought not. She hadn't broken any rules, at least not recently.

A good ten minutes passed before Lucy really did begin to grow impatient. She was missing out on valuable reading time, and at this rate, she would not finish _Finnegans Wake_ on time, and even if she got back to her study hall soon, she'd have to rush, and Lucy hated rushing things.

Finally, the door to the vice principal's office opened, and a student whom Lucy did not recognize left the room. Mrs. Wuornos called her in and she got up.

"Yes?" she asked politely once in front of the vice principal. Lucy took a seat.

"I just wanted to have a brief conversation with you," said Mrs. Wuornos. "Recently, there's been a spike in delinquent activity around the school. Late last week, a bathroom stall was vandalized, and just this morning, a large plant in the school lobby was stolen. These are just two examples of many."

"Why exactly do you tell me this, Mrs. Wuornos?"

"Well, Lucy, you're one of our best students. Your grades are excellent and you have no real disciplinary action in your record. I'd just like to ask you if you would happen to know anything about any of these events."

"No, I can't say I have."

"Is that so? Have you heard any rumors?"

By now Lucy was very much annoyed. Incompetence of authority was one of her biggest pet-peeves, and right in front of her sat a prime example. She had no real opinion on Mrs. Wuornos. The vice principal was innocuous at best but stupid at worst. It was wrong for her to have been forced to waste ten minutes sitting in the lobby because Wuornos couldn't do her job and had to ask students if they knew anything about the students ruining the school. Lucy had witnessed many times in the past students with earbuds in their ears in the hallway or wearing obviously dress code-violating clothing walk right by Wuornos, and she had done absolutely nothing about them. Maybe it was a good idea to start by asking _those_ kids. Why was _she_ being bother about this inane rubbish?

Lucy sighed. "No, I know nothing about these occurrences. I'm sorry."

For a moment, Wuornos gave Lucy a look almost as if she didn't believe her, almost as if she might have even _suspected_ her, but as soon as it came it passed. The vice principal sighed. "Very well, then. You may return to your study hall."

"Thank you," Lucy said with a hint of bitterness. She got up and went back into the outer office, where a group of boys sat in the waiting area with hangdog expressions while Mr. Berdella stood over them and gave one of his famous tongue lashings. Something about a fight in the gym - Lucy ignored it.

The corridor stood empty as she made her way to the library, her steps rushed. She glanced at the clock on the wall and frowned. She'd have enough time to finish...only if her copy was missing the final ten pages.

That annoyed her.

In the library, a tranquil and ambiently lit hall crammed with utilitarian metal bookshelves and long, scuffed tables, Lucy passed the check out counter and ducked into one of the study rooms opening off the main space. Haiku and Caroline sat side-by-side at a desk facing her, their books open before them. Lucy sat, and they both looked up. "You're late," Caroline said.

"I know," Lucy said, "Mrs. Wuornos needed me."

"The same reason she wanted _me?" _Haiku asked.

Lucy opened her book and laid it in front of her. "The vandalism?"

"She asked me about that too," Caroline said.

Apparently the old woman was worse at her job than Lucy suspected. Perhaps she was being a little harsh on Mrs. Wuornos, but she made her late and all but ensured that she would waltz into the meeting this afternoon metaphorically empty handed. She would thus have to resort to looking the ending up on Google and pretending that she finished the book. Lucy didn't like cutting corners like that. She was proud of her intelligence (maybe a little too proud), and half assing things made her feel like a failure.

"Do you think she suspects _us?" _Haiku worried.

Lucy remembered the look of incredulity on Mrs. Wuornos's face before she left the office, as though she disbelieved her statement, and her frown deepened. Off hand, she'd say no; she, Carolie, and Haiku were all honor roll students whose disciplinary infractions ranged from zero to non existent. What cause did she have to think they were involved? "I don't know," she said. "I do know I need to get started." With that, she bent over her book and started to read.

When the bell rang twenty minutes later, she was ten pages from done, as she'd anticipated. Sighing in frustration, she slammed the book closed and got roughly to her feet. Caroline and Haiku both looked up at her. "Did you finish?" Caroline asked.

"If you need help -" Haiku started.

"No, I don't need help," Lucy snapped, "I'm done."

Before either one could question her further, she spun on her heels and marched out of the room, her cheeks flushed with embarrassment. Yes, she was too proud for her own good and not finishing _Finnegans Wake _left her feeling two inches tall when it honestly shouldn't. In life, everyone has a defining characteristic upon which they lay great value. For some, it's their strength or ability to play a certain sport, for others it's their appearance or fashion sense...for her it was her intelligence and all of its attendant features. Day in and day out, she observed the complacent actions and apathetic habits of her classmates and yearned to be as unlike them as possible. She sensed in them a vapid hollowness that they themselves didn't. They went through the motions of life like marionettes on the end of a string, all the same, all interchangeable, all governed by animal instinct and content to vegetate in front of the television and amount to nothing.

That struck her as a dismal and unhappy fate. She strove for a full, well roundedness in life.

A well-roundedness that she didn't feel.

She didn't hate or even look down on her classmates. She saw reflected in them her own abiding unfulfillment and detested it.

If she hated anyone, it was herself.

She didn't hate herself either. She simply felt the absence of something, like a vital piece missing from her soul. That piece, she imagined, was out there somewhere, waiting for her to come along and find it. In what form it would come, she could not say. A boy? A girl? A certain career path? Everyone is incomplete, she reckoned, whether they know it or not. At least they start off incomplete...then, if they're lucky, they find that missing component. Not many people realize they are missing something, and those that do are fundamentally unhappy or, at the very least, dissatisfied. Lucy was the latter. Simply displeased.

If she allowed herself to dwell, she would become the former - distraught and anguished in heart and spirit. She did not; instead, she went to math class and threw herself into her lesson with the reckless abandon of a woman escaping the maw of some great and pressing beast.

The final bell brought her back to reality, and to her most recent source of peturbment.

Not finishing _Finnegans Wake. _

Though it was a small thing, it represented, in a way, her disenchantment. Better to focus on that than on more major issues.

She filed out of class with the others and wound through the crowded hall toward the meeting room. Kids laughed, horseplayed, and bumped into her, one nearly knocking her to her knees. She did not hate them, she envied them because they, unlike her, were not cursed with an overactive mind, a mind that, she sometimes feared, might even be broken. That envy lead to resentment. If she indulged that resentment, it would fester and metastasize into hatred like cancer.

Taking a deep breath, she sought shelter in a nearby girl's room, sitting on the toilet lid of the far stall and waiting for the school to clear out. After a few minutes, which she used to ashamedly look up crib notes for _Finnegans Wake, _ the cacophonous din slacked off, and sighing, Lucy got up and went back into the hall, where only a handful of kids lingered, most of them belonging to one of the after school clubs. Clutching her books to her chest and keeping her head down to block out the world around her, she hurried to the meeting room - the creative writing classroom across from the cafeteria. Caroline, Haiku, and Winston were already there, sitting at a long table and patiently waiting for the stragglers. There were five members, Lucy being the fourth and the final a gangly black boy named Clarence who wore a black trench coat and read manga during lunch, much to the cruel delight of bullies. They called him _niggachu, Dragon Ball Z, _and _faggot. _

Lucy sank into a chair across from Winston, whose beady little eyes immediately slithered over her body.

A short boy with tiny spectacles, a wild crop of yellow-headed pimples on his fat, rosy cheeks, and breasts that were the envy of every girl in school, Winston Emery Lauder wore sweatpants, New Balance tennis shoes, and a solid gray shirt because every print shirt was probably too small for his titanic girth. He panted perpetually for air and his doughy face was always lightly coated in perspiration. Lucy was not shallow and did not care whether a person was fat or thin, but Winston repulsed her. It was not his body so much as it was his personality. He was condescending, overbearing, dismissive, and the biggest egotistical jackass Lucy had ever known. He waddled through the halls with his fat nose in the air as though he were better than everyone else and wrote strange, second person poetry that always, it seemed, incorporated sexual imagery.

To her endless chagrin, Winston had a crush on her, and showed it by leering at her like a hungry dog and licking his chapped lips in a disgusting and obscene manner. After ten minutes in his presence, she felt thoroughly violated, and if he were to every touch her with his bloated, probably damp-palmed hand, she'd never get clean again.

"You're late," he huffed thickly.

"I had something to do," Lucy said shortly.

"Consider my proposal?"

Last week, he asked her on a date. _Perhaps we can...go to...McDonald's together, _he said between gasps for air; the most strenuous thing he'd done was get up and lumber into the hallway.

She told him she didn't date but would think about it. Whatever she may have been, she was not cruel, even in regards to a creep like Winston, and did not want to hurt his feelings.

"I have, and I'd rather not. Sorry. I'm not ready."

"The game continues," Winston said and winked.

Ew.

Momentarily, Clarence came through the door in a trench coat and wide-brimmed hat that made him look like the bastard love child of a Quaker and a school shooter, and the meeting began. The whole time, Winston molested her with his eyes, and halfway through, Lucy's skin started to crawl. She squirmed uncomfortably and stared down at her book, half wishing he'd suffer a massive heart attack and die. "Did you find the text difficult, dear Lucy?" he asked at one point and wetted his lips with his tongue.

"No," she said sharply. She wished he wouldn't call her that.

"Beauty _and _brains," he remarked.

She shivered.

At the end, it fell to Caroline to pick the next book. She chose _Infinite Jest _by David Foster Wallace, another tome renown for its inaccessibility. "Ah," Winston said, "brings back memories of fourth grade, I'll have it done by the end of tomorrow."

Lucy rolled her eyes. Collecting her things, she pushed away from the table, got up, and hurried away; she could _feel _Winston's eyes on her butt, and she nearly gagged. At her locker, she grabbed her history book and homework assignment and slammed the door. Caroline leaned back against her own locker, gazing into space. "You want a ride home?" she asked. "My mom will be here in five minutes."

Lucy considered. After the day she had, she needed a little time to clear her head. "No, thanks, I'll walk."

She waited with Caroline until her mother text that she was waiting at the side door, then bid farewell to her friend and started toward the main doors.

"Lucy!"

She came to a grinding halt.

Winston's voice echoed through the desolate corridor like the cry of a damned soul, and Lucy ground her teeth together. She almost ignored him, but turned instead, her face hard. He waddled toward her as fast as his short, stubby little legs would carry him, tits and stomach jiggling under his shirt. She took a deep breath through her nose and let it out. When he reached her, his face was beet red and dark patches spread out from beneath his underarms. "I was...just going...to see…" he panted, "if you...wanted to...borrow...my copy of..._Jest._" He bent, clapped his hands to his knees, and struggled to catch his breath.

Though she wished him dead not twenty minutes ago, her face softened in concern. "You alright?" she asked.

He nodded and stood to his full height. "Yes," he rasped, "I'm fine. Anyway, if you'll accompany me to my abode, I will happily lend you my copy of _Infinite Jest_." A slimy smile skipped across his cracked lips. "Then, perhaps, we can engage in a little French kissing."

Lucy's jaw clenched. "Perhaps you can leave me alone."

"Come now, Lucy," he urged, "we're both intellectual heavyweights. We've more in common with each other than anyone else. I might not be handsome, but I can still take you to second base. Third if you open your legs."

Everything Lucy had been bottling up for months - the resentment, anger, agitation at Winston's endless passes - welled up in her chest like a blast of steam from a boiler. "I don't want to go to second base with you," she said tightly, "I don't want to go anywhere with you. You're a fat, snide, pompous ass and your corpulent body revolts me."

Winston cringed, and the stupid look on his face made her even more furious. "I've tried to drop hints that I hate you but you're simply too stupid to pick up on them. Leave me alone. Don't look at me, don't talk to me, don't even _think _about me. I don't want you and I never will. _No _girl wants you. Your pathetic little micopenis will never know the kiss of a woman's body unless you pay for it, and if you do, she will charge you extra because you are that hideous of a human being."

Winston's face screwed up in misery and tears welled in his eyes.

"Go away. If you're lucky and lose six hundred pounds, and that shitty attitude of yours, you _might _stand a fighting chance of not dying a virgin."

Beginning to blubber, Winston turned and ran down the hall, his sobs trailing behind him like a funeral lament. Lucy watched him go with hatred in her eyes, then turned and went through the door. She positively _seethed _with pent up rage; letting it out was liberating, like an orgasm, and her body shook with the need to expend more of it. She looked around, then jerked in surprise when something sailed past her head. A group of people in ski masks stood on the sidewalk lobbing things at the front of the building. Something came down in front of her and splattered on the top step.

An egg.

Lucy's head throbbed with anger and she shot them a dirty look. One saw her and slapped a comrade on the arm. They both looked at her, and for a moment they stared each other down. Something about the challenge she sensed tripped a deep, animalistic trigger in her brain, and to her surprise, she threw herself at them with a high battle cry. There were six, maybe seven, and they could have taken her on easy, but they must have seen the fire in her eyes, for they scattered in every direction like cockroaches. She locked onto one like a laser guided missile and ran after him.

Then it happened.

She slipped in the goo of broken egg, and heart in throat, she landed hard on her butt, the air knocked from her lungs in a rush. The criminals disappeared and she was left alone with the gathering twilight, panting and shaking.

Fucking bastards.

Baring her teeth, she got to her feet and glanced up at the school. Eggs dotted the brick facade like bullet holes, and soap smeared several of the windows.

Well, there you go, Mrs. Wuornos, I found your goddamn vandals.

Shaking her head, she picked up her books and started home, unaware that she was being watched by a camera mounted above the door.


	2. Chapter 2

Lincoln Loud was presently dealing with an unrecognized feeling, something strange and alien to him, and as he thought about it more and more, he went with his proclivity and his proclivity was to view this unrecognized feeling as brave and exciting and new, but as he considered it more, as he examined his problem from different angles, he wasn't so certain, and this uncertainty made him begin to think about his unrecognized feeling as something negative and possibly even deleterious, and he became, though he would not admit it to himself, not even a tiny bit, scared.

When he had talked to the sophomore in his media production class, he did so as if talking to anybody else. His conversation was somewhat normal, not at all out of place, not at all terribly different from all of the other conversations he engaged in throughout each and every school day. Something happened, however, during that conversation, but what it was Lincoln did not know.

He saw the sophomore in the hall later that day and felt a pang of… fear? Fear wasn't the best word he'd used to describe it, but he couldn't think of anything better. Lincoln felt like he'd never felt before, and the rest of the day, it bothered him greatly. Sitting in his final class, study hall, he tried to lose himself in a comic book, but his mind kept turning back to the sophomore, There was something about him, an indefinable trait or characteristic that drew Lincoln to him. Charisma, perhaps, that nebulous and electric pull that some people simply _have_. He played their conversation back in his head, and no, even now, it was a simple, off hand chat, nothing more and, indeed, nothing less.

Whatever it may or may not have been, Lincoln found himself liking the guy, and kind of wanted to track him down and get to know him better. Does he like comics? Video games? Could he hang in a little _Steal That Car, _or was he some kind of anti violence SJW? Lincoln did not have the answers to those questions but wanted them, so the best way was to ask, right? Only that almost-maybe-fear crept back in at the prospect, and with it frustration. Why should he feel fear over the idea of simply talking to someone? He'd always been personable and outgoing - he could get along with anybody and genuinely liked most people - what gives _here?_

That was another question for which he had no answer, and when the final bell rang, he collected his things and went to his locker. He'd forget about it, he thought. He and Clyde had a project to work on and though he knew he could scrape by on the skin of his teeth, he wanted their film to be the best it possibly could, so right now, that required his full attention.

Outside, the February sun rapidly drained from the ashy purple sky, and an icy wind swept up the street. Across the street, one story houses huddled against the heatless dusk like Eskimos dreading the coming month of nights and kids hurried along the sidewalk toward their homes. Clyde waited by the flagpole, and together they started in the direction of Lincoln's house. "Did you finish the script?" Clyde asked.

Lincoln's heart jogged. He was supposed to finish the script in study hall but it completely slipped his mind. "No," he admitted, "but I have the ending in mind, so we should be good."

"Alright," Clyde nodded. "I'll see if my dads have any costume pieces we can use. I _think _one of them has a puffy pirate shirt."

They paused at a cross street to let a bus pass.

Their film was tentatively titled _Ace Savvy Vs. Cap'n Hawk, _Cap'n Hawk being a parody of Jack Sparrow from the _Pirates of the Caribbean _movies. In it, Ace falls into Professor Phreak's time machine and is transported to a pirate ship in the year 1718. The pirates imprison him, but he breaks out and takes his revenge. It was dumb, silly, and, Lincoln hoped, funny in an ironic sort of way. When he and Clyde brainstormed it, they had a decision to make: Go for something pretentious that took itself too seriously, or have fun. They both elected to have fun. Media production - in most of its varying forms - was Lincoln's passion, and Mr. Berk always said that if you don't have fun with your passion, you're not doing it right.

"I think I still have my Ace Savvy cosplay," Lincoln mused as they approached the end of Franklin Avenue, "but I doubt it fits."

Clyde snickered as though something humorous had occurred to him. "Wear it anyway."

The last time he and Clyde dressed up as Ace and One-Eye Jack was...gee, eighth grade? They went to a convention in Detroit (chaperoned by Bobby and Lori) and somehow got roped into watching a famous comic book artist's booth for him while he hit the bathrooms, had lunch, smoked cigarettes, and did God knows what else. He'd grown a _lot _in the interim. Not so much wider but taller. Much taller. If he stuffed himself into that suit, the cuffs would reach his forearms and his stomach would be exposed.

Actually, that was perfect..

Later, at home, he dug through his closet and found it under a stack of comic books. He went to grab it, and a magazine slipped out from the pile, landing open at his feet. A blonde woman with her legs spread and her hairy center bared to the world smirked seductively up at him. She wore open toed heels, a smile, and nothing else. Huh. Lincoln stooped down and picked it up, then turned it over in his hands. _Hustler. _He vaguely remembered Clyde bringing his over one day, eyes wide with excitement. _Dude, look what I found lying on the ground. Naked women. _They sat on Lincoln's bed and paged methodically through it, gaping at the sultry images, Clyde in excitement and Lincoln in juvenile repulsion. Breasts and butts were...okay, but vaginas were kind of strange. They reminded him of the facehugger from _Alien_. Therein, he thought later, lies the mysteries of sex, and many an intrepid man had plunged into the font of knowledge like Adam biting into the forbidden fruit. Lincoln imagined he would too one day, but that long ago afternoon, he wasn't interested. Staring at the magazine again today, he felt a stirring of...something...in his stomach, a faint and muted sensation like the secret whispering of spring breezes, but he could not name it. It wasn't desire, per se, and it wasn't disgust. If forced to label it, he'd called it disquiet, like a small boy feels when he sees something he knows he ought not to.

Rolling it into a tube, he absently shoved it into his dresser, crossed to the door, and thumbed the lock. He quickly undressed and pulled the Ace costume on. As expected, the sleeves stopped well short of his wrists, the pant cuffs halfway down his calves, and the shirt pulled back from his stomach. In the full length mirror on the back of the door, he looked ridiculous. He mugged, and his reflection simpered back at him. He cocked one hip sassily and put his hand on it. "I'm Ace," he said, "and I'm here to kick bubblegum and chew butt...and I'm all outta gum." He giggled. Would Mr. Berk let them put that in? He was a laid back guy, but that might be pushing it.

He pursed his lips and pouted at the looking glass. "Your booty is mine, Cap'n Hawk. Your hairy treasure chest too." He pictured his adversary before him, a 17th century rake with delicate features, dirty blonde hair, and shimmering, crystal blue eyes like the surface of twin mountain lakes. Lincoln's heart skipped a beat when he realized it was the sophomore.

Something akin to terror blossomed in his chest, and he whipped away from the mirror, one hand reflexively going up to shield his face as if from those perfect blue eyes. His heart slammed furiously against his chest and his stomach fluttered in a strange and frightening way. He drew a deep, trembling breath, then let it out in an irritated rush.

He didn't know what was happening to him.

But he didn't like it.

At all.

* * *

"Do you know why you've called you down here, Lucy?"

From across the desk Lucy gave Ms. Wuornos and then Mr. Berdella a look of disinterest. Just yesterday, she was questioned in this very office about the incidents happening around the school, and as a result had been unable to finish her book like she had planned. Now, here she was not even one day later, sitting in the same chair, dealing with the same old bullshit.

"No, I don't. I surmise, though, that you both plan to question me again about the vandalism on the bathroom stall or something. You're wasting your time, though. Like I said, I don't know anything."

Ms. Wuornos shot Mr. Berdella a look. "I think you do, Lucy," she said.

Lucy narrowed her eyes. "I hardly believe that warrants your taking me out of class. In fact, I may be willing to go as far as to say that you're crippling my education. Is that what you like doing, Ms. Wuornos? Interfering with the student's educational process?"

"Lucy, this is hardly a joking matter." Her tone was flat. "You're one of our best students, but right now, you're not acting like it."

"Ms. Wuornos, no matter how I conduct myself, I'm always 'acting' like the one of the best students here because I _am _one of the best students here. Even if I, I don't know, firebomb a teacher's car because I don't like them, I'm still 'acting' how one of the best students here would act."

She looked across the desk at her, likely thinking _I don't want to deal with this right now_.

"Lucy, let me cut to the chase," cut in principal Berdella. "We have plausible cause to suspect that it was you that was behind the egging of the school yesterday."

Lucy's blood ran cold. She didn't show fear, though, lest she be suspected even more for egging the school than she already apparently was.

"And why do you say that?"

"We have video evidence," she said. "You were the only student to leave the building around the time of the incident. As you come into frame, you have egg in your clothing and hair."

Lucy thought back to yesterday. She had seen several figures in ski masks lobbing eggs at the school, and when she came outside, she tripped and fell in the goo of one. She considered going back in the school to report the incident, but quite frankly, she couldn't have cared less at the time, nor did she really care now. There was too much on her mind at the moment; Lynn had called home from college for the first time in weeks when she got home yesterday, there was a new book club book that she was starting to get in to, and the incident with Winston yesterday had made things awkward between them. In the halls, when he saw her, he quickly looked away as if her gaze alone would turn him to stone.

"That wasn't me," Lucy said simply. "After the literature club meeting ended, I saw people in ski masks throwing eggs at the school. I came outside and they fled. I slipped in one of the eggs and went home."

"And you didn't mention this until now?" Wuornos asked.

"No," said Lucy, "I guess not."

There was a pause in the office.

"Well, Lucy, administration has already decided that you were the one that egged the school. You're testimony did not help you, especially since you didn't say that you noticed the egging until after _we_ brought it up."

Lucy sat still.

"Your punishment is a two month suspension. I hope that you can learn from your mistake and come back to school with a changed attitude."

Silence.

"Furthermore, we will be disbanding the literature club for good, as you used it as an opportunity to cause harm to the school."

The girl sighed and turned her head to look out the window. The world was still and cold.

"Do you have anything to say, Lucy?"

"Go to hell. I didn't do it."

Was it just Lucy's imagination, or did she see a flicker of amusement in Wuornos' eyes? "It's unfortunate that you're not willing to own up to it. I look forward to seeing your changed attitude when you return from your suspension."

Waiting in the school lobby once again, this time awaiting her mother to arrive and drive her home, Lucy pondered what she could have done to have better dealt with her meeting in the office. Was there anything she could change to have not been designated as the culprit behind the egging? She often found that, when dealing with stupid people, one was best equipped with a detached disinterest. All her life, people chased the same highs and the same simple tastes, but she wanted none of it. when presented with stupidity, Lucy made a conscious effort not to entertain it. She dealt with incompetent teachers with a glossy gaze and silence in most cases.

At the end of the day, there was really nothing she could have done to prevent her fate. She got caught on camera with egg on her, and the people in the ski masks did not; they must have been smarter than she originally thought. The best she could hope for now was probably to appeal the suspension from home.

What if she uncovered the identity of the people who really did it?

The thought came from nowhere, but the more Lucy thought about it, the more it honestly seemed like a good idea. She could prove her innocence and make Wuornos and Berdella look like idiots in the process. Of paramount importance was that she'd get her literature club back, too.

Her brain went to its highest setting as she thought of the best way to begin her investigation. She had little to work with; the true culprits were a group of six, maybe seven, people, and from their frame and height, they looked no older than 18. All were probably students at the school, probably seniors or juniors.

She connected dots in her head. A stolen plant, a vandalized bathroom stall, and now a front school wall covered in egg. Royal Woods High wasn't a perfect school, but at the same time, it wasn't a complete shitshow. Most of the students had some sense of respect. There was a good amount of idiots, but Lucy didn't foresee the average RRH student as someone who found pleasure in complete delinquency. Acts like these ween 't very common. Why had three happened in such a short time span? And why were they getting progressively worse? Was something even diabolical on the way?

Something was going on. It was entirely possible for three acts of vandalism around the school to happen all in the span of less than a week in a half, but Lucy found herself suspecting that something bigger was at play here, something unseen and ugly.

It would be a true test to her intelligence and tact, but Lucy would uncover whatever it was herself.

Sitting in the passenger seat of Vanzilla as Mom drove her home, Lucy crossed her arms and gazed out the window. The air was dense and choking with tension, like the atmosphere before a thunderstorm. Mom stared straight ahead, her mouth a bloodless white slash and her knuckles pale on the wheel. Her nostrils flared with outrage, lending her the appearance of a bull preparing to charge, and her eyes glinted coldly. Lucy waited for the inevitable, and it came when they were two blocks from home. "Why did you do it?" Mom asked tightly.

"I didn't," Lucy declared.

"They have you on camera," Mom said.

"They have me slipping, falling, and walking away," she replied. Uncharacteristic passion burned in the center of her breast and her hands balled into angry fists. The indignation of being falsely accused of something she did not do, compounded by her word (as _one of our best students_) being given absolutely no weight whatsoever cut her far more deeply than she imagined it would. She had _never _conducted herself in an untoward manner during her academic career, never, and that her sterling record meant nothing in the face of this matter infuriated her just as much as it hurt her.

"They have you _running, _Lucy," Mom said.

"I was upset about something, okay?" Lucy said sharply. "I walked out the door, someone threw and egg, and I lost my temper."

What stung above all else was that not even her mother believed her. The evidence against her was flimsy at best and bullshit at worst, yet Mom was swallowing it hook, line, and sinker.

"Watch your tone, young lady," Mom said. "I am _not _in the mood for this."

"I'm not in the mood for willful ignorance," Lucy shot back, "my permanent record is destroyed over something _I _had no part in, something that's not _my _doing."

Mom favored her with a deadly glance and shook her head. "You're grounded until you go back to school."

Lucy's heart stopped. "But, Mom -"

"No buts," Mom said and turned into the driveway, "go straight to your room and do not come out until I tell you to."

Shaking with rage, flush and shockingly close to tears, Lucy threw the door open as soon as the van stopped and stormed inside, making sure to slam the door behind her so that Mom knew how upset she was. In her room, she slammed that door too and paced restively back and forth like a caged animal. As she stalked from one end to the other, thoughts raced through her head, and her lips peeled back from her teeth in a sneer. Her normally wan face burned deep shades of crimson and her chest puffed with the rhythm of her ragged breathing. She'd find the bastards responsible and tear their heads off; she'd do what Vlad the Impaler did and stick them on sharpened pikes, she'd prove to Mrs. Wuornos and the others that she was innocent, then they'd fall all over themselves to apologize and beg her forgiveness.

But where did she start? She knew positively nothing save that the vandals were most likely high schoolers, probably juniors or seniors. Off the top of her head, there were almost a thousand students at RCH, and at least a hundred of those, maybe more, fell into the two upper class suspect pool.

Calming down, she dropped onto the edge of her bed, planted her elbows on her knees, and rested her face in her upturned palms. Alright, let's think logically. The vandals have been getting progressively bolder, much like a serial killer once he establishes a pattern and realizes he can get away with his crimes. Most serial killers, however, get cocky and slip up. The vandals were teens, and teens are, by their very nature, reckless and overconfident.

Those two things lead her to one conclusion: They would do something even bigger soon, and they probably wouldn't be too careful in the commission of it. What was bigger than egging the school?

Perhaps breaking in. Stealing things. Smashing windows. Ransacking the place.

That, she reasoned, could only be done at night.

Slowly, a plan of action began to take shape in her mind.

She would watch the school after dark, she decided, and from there, she would vindicate herself and make Mrs. Wuornos eat humble pie until she _puked_.


	3. Chapter 3

The Michigan day was cool. It wasn't warm, it usually never was at this point in February, but it was getting there. Three boys walked casually on a sidewalk in the downtown area of Royal Woods, and the group had no real plans other than to eventually stop somewhere and get lunch. Days like these were their favorite.

"We should burn something," Austin said, kicking an empty and abandoned can down the road as the group walked.

"Burn something?" questioned Brandon. "Like what?"

"I don't know. We can find a piece of trash on the ground or something and set it on fire. It sounds fun."

"You sound like a pyromaniac," Garrett said, shaking his head.

The boys came to a bench in front of a small Vietnam memorial and sat. American flags lined the street nearby, waving in the wind, and the sun shone brightly down from above. It was nearing noon.

"I don't think burning anything is a good idea," said Brandon. "Isn't that illegal?"

Austin shrugged.

"Do you even have a match?"

In answer, Austin reached in his pocket and fished out a lighter, spinning it around in his hands.

"Of course he does," Garrett said. "It's like he never goes anywhere without it."

Brandon made a joke at Austin's expense, and the two began to laugh, but Garrett didn't hear; his attention was arrested by a figure making its way down the sidewalk not too far away on the other side of the street. He squinted his eyes and leaned in to get a better look. Was that…?

It was. Garrett spotted someone from his high school, the junior with white hair who was in his media production class. Sort of hard to miss. He didn't know his name, but he had heard someone call him Loud once, he thought. Hey, Loud, how's it going? Was that a nickname?

As his friends talked, Garrett stood. It was a slow and lazy day and the streets were presently clear, and the boy began to sprint across the road.

"Loud!" he called.

Upon hearing his voice, Lincoln stopped his tracks and sort of jolted in place as if he put a fork in a plugged in toaster for half a second before pulling it out. Garrett frowned. Had he frightened him? Maybe it wasn't the best idea to introduce himself by running and screaming at him, but as he turned and looked at Garrett, realizing it was just a kid from one of his classes, the junior smiled.

Garrett arrived and jumped in front of him. "Hey, man," he said. "Media production, right? Didn't expect to see you out here."

"I guess you're just lucky," he said.

Garrett thought of chuckling at the joke but decided against it. For a moment, the two boys stood still and silent. A gust of wind carried a leaf past them.

"I—" began Garrett. He stopped when he felt a vibration in his pocket. "Hold on. I need to take this real quick."

Lincoln nodded and Garrett produced a phone from out of his pocket. He looked at the screen, saw who was calling, and gritted his teeth.

* * *

"Going somewhere?" Lucy asked from the couch as Lincoln, clad in a windbreaker, made his way to the front door.

He arrived at the door and turned. His sister was on the couch, sitting with a paperback in her hands. Her eyes went across the page, moved down and to the left to the start of a new line, moved across the page again, and repeated the process without pause or hesitation.

"Just getting some fresh air," he said truthfully.

Lucy nodded, and he threw open the door to a new Saturday morning. He checked the time before he was left, and noon was a little over half an hour away. Lincoln would take a stroll around the town alone, collect his thoughts, maybe get a bite to eat at one point, and come home. He had no real responsibilities until two when he would have to be home as Luan would be visiting the house and she probably wanted to see him.

He went down the path in his front yard and decided to take a left. His mind drifted to the sophomore boy, and he immediately thought himself stupid for allowing such a thing to happen. He'd shared a single brief conversation with the student, and he didn't even know his name, but he had occupied so much of Lincoln's mind space over the past few days that it was beginning to become ridiculous.

Every time that he thought back to the sophomore, he felt that feeling that was almost like fear but not really. If Lincoln had to describe it, he'd do so by calling it some unholy, off brand version of apprehension… but, surprisingly it didn't feel entirely bad.

Regardless, he didn't like it because he didn't understand it and because he didn't want to plunge himself into an internal crisis over a kid whose name he didn't even know. Lincoln would simply purge it all from his mind and forget about it. He wouldn't allow it to shove its way in his life without warning and cause problems.

Lincoln came to a four way intersection and decided to take a right. There was no traffic, so he crossed the street without hesitation. To his left, now, were trees, a forest extending far beyond his range of vision, and to his right on the other side of the road were homes. Michigan suburbia had some sort of charm on it that Lincoln couldn't put his finger on. He'd never been able to. He took out his phone and brought up his contact list. Maybe talking to someone would put his mind on the right track. After a brief phone conversation, he'd probably never think about the sophomore again.

But who? Did it really matter? Lincoln scrolled quickly up and down through his contacts so that the list was a blur, and tapped the screen at random, not really knowing what to expect. Leni's bright smiling face filled his screen and Lincoln, too, smiled. This would do. Surely, a conversation with the sweetest person that God put on the face of the planet would help matters.

The phone rang and rang until she picked up. Lincoln brought it to his ear.

"Hello?"

"Hi, Leni."

"Hi, Linky! What's up?"

"Not much, really. Just wanted to talk. Are you busy?"

She hummed, considering. Lincoln grinned as he imagined a thoughtful finger on her chin and her eyes gazing up and away, considering.

"I can talk, sure."

"Cool. How are things going?"

She paused. "They're going okay. Not too great, but I'm still happy. Sales have been down and there's whispers about layoffs, but they're just rumors. And even if it does come to that, I'm sure my job will be safe. Teresa says that I'm her best worker."

Leni had left home for college all the way in California five years ago, and had gotten a job at a small fashion outlet nearby during her first year to help pay tuition. She kept the job all throughout college, and upon graduation, Teresa, the store's owner, promoted her to a section manager.

"I'm sure you'll be kept on. You're irreplaceable."

"Aw, thanks. But it's still scary anyway, you know?"

"Yeah. I'd imagine."

"Do you ever get scared, Lincoln?"

He frowned. "What do you mean?"

"Oh, I don't know. I'm just talking into the wind. I just used to be so scared growing up, you know? Like, I'd freak out over a spider." She laughed. "Now, I still don't really like spiders, but I don't think I'm so scared of them anymore. Fear is important but you can't let yourself be too scared of something, especially something that's not actually dangerous."

"...Yeah, I guess."

They talked some more. Lincoln and Leni spoke about the family, her life, and his life. Omitted from any of this was any mention of the sophomore.

"Oh! I have to go now," said Leni at one point. "I'm meeting a couple of friends for lunch soon."

"Alright, Leni. I hope you're having a good time down there in Cali."

"Thanks, Linc! I love you.".

"I love you too. Bye."

"Bye!"

Lincoln continued to walk, not really thinking but not functioning fully on autopilot, either. He was feeling much better, now. His conversation with Leni had cheered him up and brought him out of his funk. The one caused by the sophomore.

Lincoln chuckled. He didn't forget it completely. He was in control of his mind—for whatever reason, he had been thinking about the sophomore, and he didn't like it. That's why he had called Leni. But now he felt better. Things were looking up.

It was a bit closer to noon and now Lincoln went up the sidewalk on a small bridge suspended over a flowing river. He reached down, grabbed a stone, and tossed it over. Lincoln held on to the railings and watched as gravity carried it down. It hit the water with a satisfying plop! and a small splash. Lincoln smiled and continued on. The other end of the bridge began the downtown area of Royal Woods. Small businesses lined either side of the street and American flags connected to street lamps waved in the gentle breeze. There were more people here, too. Across the street, a man walked a dog, and nearby a woman pushed along a stroller. A group of three boys sat on a bench, and… and… was that…?

Quickly and without warning, alarm coursed through Lincoln's body like a slick and cold liquid. Sitting between two other boys was the sophomore Lincoln had met in media production class.

What were the odds? Royal Woods wasn't exactly a ginormous town, but it wasn't a small one, either. Hundreds of students went to Lincoln's high school. It wasn't even like—

"Loud!" the sophomore called.

He stopped his tracks and sort of jolted in surprise.

Lincoln was spotted.

The sophomore approached him and Lincoln forced a smile, lest he come off as scared. "Hey, man," he said. "Media production, right? Didn't expect to see you out here."

"I guess you're just lucky," Lincoln blurted. Why did he say that? It sounded weird. And pretentious? Lucky? To see him? Yeah, right.

For a moment, the two boys stood still and silent. A gust of wind carried a leaf past them. Lincoln became suddenly hyper-conscious of his hands. What was he supposed to do with them? Quickly, he shoved them in the pockets of his windbreakers.

"I—" began the sophomore. He stopped and felt in his pocket before taking out a phone. "Hold on. I need to take this real quick."

Lincoln nodded but the sophomore didn't see. He looked at the phone screen and gritted his teeth as if in frustration.

"What do you want?" he answered angrily. A pause. "No, I don't really have time right now." Pause. "Like you care." Pause. "Why do you think?" Pause. "Yeah, I thought so." Pause. "Maybe he'll do some good for you. Read you the riot act or something." Pause. "Okay. Whatever." Pause. "Bye."

"Ouch," said Lincoln as the boy put away his phone. "That hardly sounded pleasant."

The sophomore shrugged. "Anything but. That was my dad." He shook his head. "He cheated on my mom when I was little and then left her when she found out. He had custody of me one week per month, but I've stopped going because fuck him."

"And he's not making you go?"

"No, but he's asking me. I won't fall for it, though."

"Huh."

A pause.

"Do you have any problems like that?" the sophomore asked.

"Family problems? No, not really. My five older sisters are moved out."

"Five, huh?"

"Yeah. And I have five younger ones, too."

Seventeen years in, and Lincoln was used to surprising people by telling him how many siblings that he had. Wow, ten? That's crazy! The boy standing in front of him, though, only chuckled.

"That's a lot. I don't have any myself." He took a brief pause and took a moment before opening his mouth to say something else, but was cut off.

"Dude!" called one of his friends from across the street. "Are we gonna eat, or what?"

"I really don't know much about your situation," said Lincoln, "but I would try being a little nice to your father."

"Huh? Why's that?"

"Well, he's still your dad, right? Don't you love him?"

"Not really."

"Dude!" came another yell from across the street.

"Maybe you're right," said the sophomore, turning. "But he's a total fuckwad. I don't want to waste my time with him."

"Just some food for thought."

"Well, I guess I'll talk to you later, Loud," said the boy, walking away. "Thanks for the advice and small talk."

Lincoln looked on. "Yeah. Bye."

And he kept looking.

* * *

Lucy sat on the window seat Lana installed in her bedroom last year, her knees drawn to her chest, and stared up at the icy face of the moon. Cold wind stirred barren branches and moaned ominously in the eaves; if she listened closely, she could almost make out words. Nooooo, or maybe gooooo. In cartoons, the abstract concept of conflicting thought is often represented by a literal angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other, both vying for control of the heart and mind of their prey. The devil, of course, urged the evil option, while the angel begged for goodness. In her case, one told her go and the other no. She was unsure, however, of which creature proposed which course. Did the devil want her to go and fall deeper into trouble? Or did the angel wish her to avenge herself?

Taking a deep breath, she glanced at the clock on the nightstand. 9:15. Mom and Dad were both already in bed and she hadn't heard anything from the hallway. Lola and Lana were likely watching a movie in the living room like they often did on Saturday nights, and Lincoln, she imagined, was in his room, reading a comic. She was certain she could sneak out and not be missed, but that certainly gave her pause. In her thoughts, she likened the vandals to serial killers growing bolder and bolder with each passing crime. When they were at their most self-confident, they would slip up. They always do. The saying pride goeth before the fall existed for a reason, of course.

That reasoning applied equally to her. In moments of total alacrity, she realized that she was perhaps a little arrogant and prideful. She didn't mean to be, but that had become her default setting, and if she didn't make a conscious effort not to, she would slip into it like a hand into a glove. She highly doubted Mom and Dad would miss her, but there was always the chance that Lola or Lincoln would pop in to say hi or elect to keep her company. If she sneaked out, she ran the risk of being discovered.

If she stayed, however, she would be all but admitting defeat and allowing the real culprits to evade their rightful justice. Logic told her that if the vandalism continued apace, she would maybe be exonerated. Her alibi - being at home under the close supervision of her parents - would be airtight and she would, possibly, be (quietly) reinstated at school. That should be good enough for her but it wasn't. She didn't want to be allowed back in as though nothing had happened. She wanted to rub Mrs. Wuornos's face in it; she wanted to be the one to prove her innocence.

Go.

No.

Go.

Go.

She got up, crossed to her bed, and sat. Pulling her shoes on, she knotted the laces and got to her feet. She scanned the nightstand for her phone, then remembered that Mom took it away and wouldn't let her have it back until she went back to school. Damn. That left her unable to record video evidence. She scrunched her lips to the side in thought. She could perhaps go into Lola and Lana's room and see if one of them left their phone charging, then take that. In this day and age, however, a missing cellcular phone won't go unnoticed for very long. Knowing that she was on punishment and deprived of her own mobile, they would likely come to her first, rightly assuming that she was responsible. If that happened and they found her gone, they would likely tell Mom and Dad.

An idea occurred to her, and she reflexively snapped her fingers. Eureka.

Going to the door, she eased it open and poked her head into the darkened hall. A crack of light shone under Lincoln's door and blue TV glow drifted up the stairs, along with the swelling sound of dramatic music. Lucy slipped out and tiptoed to the closet flanking the bathroom, wincing when a floorboard creaked underfoot. She paused, heart racing, and listened. When no alarm went up, she continued.

At the door, she wrapped her fingers around the chilly brass knob, held her breath, and turned it slowly. The hinges shrieked like banshees foretelling the death of an Irishman (Lucy had never been more thankful her ancestors were French). She cringed and waited for Mom or Dad to come out and find her, but they didn't, and she pulled the door the rest of the way. Coats hung from the rack like mob rats from meat hooks and shoes lined the back wall. Cardboard boxes, plastic totes, and other miscellania were heaped on a high shelf. She surveyed it, saw the old Polaroid camera, and pushed up on the tips of her toes to reach it. She grabbed it, and a box next to it started to tip. Her heart rocketed into her throat and she shot one arm out, catching it just before it dropped.

Swallowing thickly, she pushed it back onto the shelf, pulled the camera down, and looped the strap around her neck. She looked around on the shelf some more and grabbed a flashlight and an empty notebook. They might come in use, too. Lucy backed out of the closet, and shut the door as gently and noiselessly as she could.

The hall stood dark and empty as she made her way back to her room. Inside, she closed the door and looked at the window. She wasn't sure the camera would work without sufficient lighting but it was the best she could do under present circumstances.

Before leaving, she crammed an extra pillow under the blanket and put a black wig on it; the wig came from Lynn - one year they dressed up as each other for Halloween as a joke.

Lucy smiled faintly at the memory. Despite the vast gulf of differences between them, she always got along with Lynn the most, and sometimes she really missed her and the conversations they had after lights out.

Pushing that aside, she put everything to rights, started to walk to the window, grabbed a pen from off of her dresser on the way, put it in her pocket, then went to the window. Climbing onto the wide ledge, she unlocked it and lifted the sash, letting a cold breeze into the room. Sitting with her legs dangling over the side, she gauged the distance between her and the oak tree. Three feet. She could jump that easy, right?

Right?

Her heartbeat picked up and her throat went dry. She was confident in her abilities to read and comprehend complex fiction and to work through most of the toughest mathematical equations her teachers could throw at her, but she was not assured of her physicalities. She was tall, gangly, and though she understood the benefits of fitness, she did not often push her body as she did her mind. She was not frail, but she was not athletic either.

An owl hooted in the night like a bad omen, and the wind strengthened, shaking the boughs and knocking them forlornly together. Her resolve began to crumble and her stomach twisted into nervous knots.

Instead of giving in, she took a deep breath, and, tensing, flung herself at the tree. She landed on one wide branch and started to slip, but wrapped her arms and legs around it like a monkey and held fast, heart knocking sickly.

She stayed where she was for a while, too scared to move lest she plummet to the ground below, then, by degrees, she shimmied to the trunk and climbed down. She dropped the last three feet and landed on her feet; she stumbled, pitched forward, and fell to her knees.

Her heart throbbed and her stomach rolled.

But she made it.

Painting, she struggled to her feet and set off.

Behind her house, now, Lucy ran to the end of the backyard, making sure to be light on her feet as not to cause too much noise. She jumped one, twice, and on her third time, grabbed the top of her fence and hoisted herself over, landing on the other side, faltering, and almost sliding in a patch of mud. Luckily, Lucy retained her purchase and kept her footing on the ground. She again broke into a run again and started away from her house.

The Michigan night was cool, and already, Lucy was regretting not thinking to wear a jacket. She had been too caught up in internal turmoil decided whether or not to even leave the house to plan very far ahead. For as much as she hated the cold, though, the air was easier to breathe - silver mercury down her lungs.

Behind her house was a lightly wooded area that eventually came out into a field. The grass was wet and some blades clung to her shoes. Moonlight lit the way and Lucy moved quickly in the night.

The school was about a twenty minute walk from her house but would be quicker because she was running and taking a shortcut. Usually, when she walked to Royal Woods High, she did so using the sidewalks, but occasionally she went around her backyard and used the path that she was presently taking through the field.

Soon enough, the field came to a sidewalk and Lucy slowed down a bit. She didn't very often care about how others perceived her - she assumed most of the students at the school who saw her in passing to think of her as a social outcast, when the opposite was true - but if the wrong person saw a young highschool girl running in the middle to the night, she'd run the risk of getting the police called on her or otherwise getting in some sort of trouble.

She thought about what she'd do when she got to the school. Lucy would have to find a position nearby and watch the front of the building, hidden. Then again, what if it was attacked from the back? RRH was a fairly large building; she couldn't watch all sides at once. If Lucy had some help, she could position friends around the building to get a complete watch of it. Unfortunately, she was alone, and had to do the best she could by working with just herself. Lucy didn't mind working independently (she often asked teachers if it was okay for her to do group projects by herself, lest she be paired with incompetent students that elected to do nothing and force Lucy to carry the entire team just to get a decent grade), but in this case, it would have been advantageous to be working with others. Oh well. Her team of one would have to suffice.

It wasn't much longer until the school came into her distance. Street lamps give off a dim, orange glow, lighting the way. Lights mounted to the build lit up the entrances. Good. There weren't many dark spots around, but she suspected if any students came along with ill intentions, they'd stick to the shadows.

Not wanting to go near the school and be caught on camera again (Lucy was banned from coming on the property until her suspencion was over), she briefly considered where to hide out until she settled on some spot on top of the hill overlooking the parking lot of the building. Sticking to the darkness, Lucy made her way up the hill and found came upon a large tree. She looked up at it, intimidated, before deciding it was the best spot for her to stake out the delinquents should they come, and took in a deep breath. She'd have to climb it.

Mustering her resolve, she jumped up and grabbed the lowest branch she saw and began to hoist herself up. Her arms began to tremble and she wondered, not for the first time, why she didn't devote more time to working out. Occasionally, she would lift Lynn's old weights, but it wasn't ever long before she grew board of tired of it than stop. Working out would build as much character as it would build muscle and Lucy decided right then and there to set more time aside for it in the future.

But that was a problem for later. Right now, she was struggling to climb even one branch. Lucy thought back again to why she was doing this. She thought of the injustice she faced. A two month suspension from the school without any real evidence. Lost respect and trust from her mother and family. The disbanding of her literature club.

The last one stung the worst. For Lucy, finding acceptance in the social scene wasn't a rare occurrence. She tried not to let it get to her, and often she was successful in this regard, but sometimes she couldn't help but wonder how much better things would be for her if she was more normal. If she didn't dress in so much black, if she didn't use to many big words that people didn't understand, if she didn't spend so much time alone or sitting in the corner of a classroom with her nose in a book. She liked who she was as a person, but there was something perpetually desirable about being liked and being social.

When she founded the literature club at her school, Lucy found a whole array of like minded people at her school previously hidden to her. Sans Winston (who, Lucy had to admit, wasn't completely insufferable when he was not pursuing her… in fact, less insufferable than most of the vapid students by a decently wide margin), Lucy had made real friends whilst bonding over books. She connected on a deep level with these peers and enjoyed spending time with them. She looked forward to their meetings. She awaited the moment where she could once again spend time with the colorful characters in the club and discuss the previous week's reading.

And it was taken away from her. Taken away by the likes of Wuornos and Berdella, the incompetent bastards that they were. Even though they were total morons, Lucy suspected that they didn't really believe she was responsible for the egging. The didn't care, thought - their only priority was looking good to their higher ups, finding any culprit to the crime that they could rather than coming up empty handed because they were too stupid to run a proper investigation.

With her newfound rage and passion for correcting her situation galvanizing her, Lucy brought herself to the top of the branch with remarkable speed. She secured her footing and stood, then reached up for the next branch, climbed it, and continued this process. She worked like a well oiled machine, as if she'd been climbing trees regularly since her early childhood. Lana and Lynn would be impressed.

About halfway up, she noticed a nice flat area atop of a large branch, threw her legs over, and sat on top of it. From her position, she was afforded a good view of the front of the school and a decent one of the left side. Now, it was time to wait.

And wait.

And wait.

If there was one thing Lucy hated, it was wasting time. She made sure to be involved in as much as she could reasonably handle. In just the past couple of years alone, Lucy had been or was still in countless groups, clubs, and events. Musical lessons, sports, online writing activities… she never liked the idea of having narrow interests. And with all of these activities, she didn't often find herself with much free time. And when she did, the idea of spending it playing video games or wasting time in any way never sat well with Lucy. She used it to read, write, do work around the house, and maybe even work out a little. If she went to bed tired, she went to bed happy and fulfilled.

And sitting alone on a tree branch in the silence and darkness reminded Lucy of why she hated wasting time. She could almost hear the seconds going by. Tick. Tick. Tick. Time was the one thing in life that you could never get back.

She smiled as she remembered that she had not forgotten to bring a notepad, and reached in her pocket and pulled it out. it was small, but it would suffice. She decided to devote some time to her favorite craft and write a poem. Lucy had been feeling a great deal of anger and grief over the past couple of days due to her unjust suspension, and she bottled up these feelings and used them to write. It was cathartic.

And my diseased soul screams,

will you be the walker of my shadows?

Delight me with sinister sin,

our funeral of Euphoria,

will break Satan's black heart.

She looked at her work, and realized it was a bit dark even for her. In the dark, Lucy smiled.


End file.
